It’s stock price has nearly been cut in half in recent weeks, and the banks actions are showing signs of this. All references to it’s popular “8x the National Average!” marketing slogans are now absent from the website.

What do you think? Will we see 1% interest rates from the popular online institutions in 2009?

There is no shortage of lessons to be learned from the demise of Circuit City, but two very real lessons about debt:

First, Circuit City’s closing was brought on, to a large extent, by an over-burdening amount of debt that the company took on. The reality of the situation is that whether you are Average Joe, or a hundred-million-dollar electronics retailer located across the U.S., saddling yourself with too much debt is a recipe for disaster.

If the economy were still booming, undoubtedly Circuit City would be continuing to operate and maintaining their large levels of debt. And while I’m sure Circuit City and many other companies as of late love to blame the economy for their woes, history has left us little doubt the economy will go through fluctuations of growth and drawback. If you are running a company for the long haul, you know this. You manage your debt, your cash flow, your expenses, and every other aspect of your business to thrive in the growth, and survive the declines. Circuit City poorly managed its debt and strategy to survive the decline.

The second lesson is much more personal. As a result of this one company and its ability (or lack thereof) to manage debt, almost 35,000 people will now be unemployed.

How many of those 35,000 have managed their personal debt accordingly to survive a lapse in employment? The story underscores that there is only one person who can be depended on, and that is yourself. You and you alone can manage your finances and your debt to survive an employer bankruptcy, a health tragedy, a family loss, an environmental disaster, or any other situation that could interrupt the normal flow of your income.

Make the choice - today and everyday - to manage your life in a way to thrive in the growth, and survive the declines.

Today, Suze Orman will appear on the Oprah show to talk about Taking Control of Your Finances. As an added bonus, until midnight tonight, you can download Suze Orman’s new book, “2009 Action Plan: Keeping Your Money Safe and Sound,” for free.

Click HERE to visit the Oprah site and download the e-book for free!

Suze Orman offers up a wealth of personal financial advice for everyday people and is widely considered one of the top personal finance writers. I look forwarding to reading this latest book.

Please share this opportunity with others!

Credit cards are a tool, and just like tools used correctly, they can be a benefit when they are needed. They can also do serious harm when they are abused or used incorrectly. I know, because I did use them incorrectly and I did abuse them. The serious harm I suffered was of my own doing.

So, if you abuse them, how do you get past it?

The crack analogy was somewhat intentional. Those who abuse any substance and are trying to quit cannot spend their time surrounded by the substance. You don’t go to the bar if you are an alcoholic, and you don’t go out on smoke breaks with others when you are trying to quit smoking. Yet, how many people wish they could get out of credit card debt but carry them around in their pocket every single day? I paid enormous bills and interest every month, and still I carried them all in my wallet religiously. Looking back, it was lunacy. I was addicted and hurting, and yet I was inflicting myself every day with this torture of putting my addiction right in my wallet!

Here is what I did:

When the next credit card statement came, I opened it and laid it out in front of me neatly. I wrote the amount I had charged that month on a piece of paper in big black marker. Then I went line by line, and for each charge I attempted to retrieve the item I purchased and put it in a stack on the floor. There were 3-4 DVD’s, a sweater, a toy for our daughter, and some office supplies.

I marked off the tangible goods I could produce. For all non-tangible goods, I wrote index cards with subject headers on them: Gas, Groceries, Entertainment, Eating Out - that covered most all the intangibles. I laid those in front of my pile, and propped my total spent sign in front of it all, and looked at it in dismay.

Nearly $700.

All I could produce at the end of the month after spending $700 (seven hundred dollars!) were some DVD’s, a sweater, a toy, and office supplies. The rest were consumables. Meals I didn’t remember, groceries long since eaten, gas burned, and entertainment that at this point didn’t seem very fun. And I certainly didn’t have $700 left over at the end of the month to pay it all off, much less the balance already on the card.

Just like anything else - if you want to break a bad habit, you’ve got to eliminate your exposure. Leave the cards at home, freeze them up in ice, lock them away, or cut ‘em up!

If none of those work, try producing everything you used credit cards to buy at the end of the month. It took me making my pain visual to get me past the plastic addiction.

I started the process with a look back.  While that was hard, because I see a lot of wasted time and missed opportunity, I also see major success in the most recent past that drives me forward.  I laid out some personal goals, both financial and otherwise, some career goals, and some general things I want to do better.

The process was really helpful to go through, as I feel it is for everyone.  To even process financial goals in terms of anything other than paying the bills this month is beyond amazing.  It reminded me, as often happens, just how much a toll debt took on me.  When I was in denial of my debt, I didn’t talk about money with anyone, wife included.  I knew where the conversation would go because it was the only thing to talk about.  Any talk about savings, retirement, education - it all led to debt, because none of those could happen without dealing with the debt.

It is amazing how much the debt locked down my life, not just financially but as a whole, and equally amazing how much of my own life has opened up to me now that I’m debt free!

I hope your new year, if not debt free, will begin with a plan to become that way.  The road will be long and difficult, and I PROMISE it will be worth it at the end.

In the land of freedom and prosperity, the birthplace of the American Dream, I felt like a foreigner.  I wasn’t free, and I certainly wasn’t prospering.  I was indentured to corporations for sums of money that seemed insurmountable.  I had to forego basic needs to pay for things I did not remember buying, and things that had been consumed years ago.

For years, I lived that way and didn’t realize it.  The wake-up call was when my job became a place I loathed.  I desperately wanted to walk away.  Realizing that I could not, and the reason I could not was my own creation, was enough.  The denial was over, the blaming left only me, and I was left to decide how this was going to end.

Fortunately, I’ve never been much of one to roll over for anyone.  Once the inner conflict had worked itself out, I knew what had to happen.  The spending stopped.  The luxuries that my lifestyle had given me thus far were liquidated as much as possible.  The SUV was sold in favor of an awesome 16 year old beater, and life for the next year was not what anyone would consider fun.

However, in that year, almost $20,000 in debt was gone and about $8,000 had been put in savings.

That sounds pretty easy when typed out, but there was nothing easy in that process.  Most days I would have preferred to swallow an apple whole than drive that car to work and park beside those same cars that had envied mine previously.  To warm up last night’s dinner in the microwave and eat in the kitchen instead of grabbing sushi with friends for lunch.

Most people were still comfortable in their world of debt slavery, content to live in a world where one small hiccup in life could send their world spiraling out of control.  My one man crusade on debt was not of the slightest interest.  I didn’t care. I cared and it hurt.  I wanted to not care and go back.  I wanted my SUV back, my toys back, which is to say - I wanted to be back in denial.

I was past it though.

I say all of it was worth it, but that seems cliche.  If you are in that position, denial is so much easier.  I know, I did it for years.

Many people blog their way out of debt.  I didn’t, though I read many of your stories and many of you helped me keep my sanity when I wanted to throw in the towel.  So for that, Thank You.  You put your pain and struggle out there for me to read, and I appreciated knowing I wasn’t alone.

While much of what I will write will probably focus on the present, the pain of where I was is still very fresh.  I know how easy it was to get there, and even though I’m now free of debt, I’m finding that this end is subtly more difficult.  I’ve not saved with anywhere near the intensity that I repaid debt, to my own dismay.

And that is where I begin.